Plasmatrons or plasma generators producing high temperature and density plasmas are used in a variety of industrial and laboratory applications, such as plasma torches for flame-spraying refractory materials, sources of continium radiation and as a medium for carrying out exotic chemical reactions. Techniques presently employed to produce continuous plasmas consist of very high current electric arcs, high power radio-frequency or microwave discharges, and very highly focused, high power continuous wave lasers. Short pulse length plasmas are commonly produced by high power pulsed lasers. The electric arc and the high frequency discharge technique for producing continuous plasmas suffer from the disadvantage of having some type of solid material in close proximity to the plasma. This material is subjected to intense radiant and convective heating, and may erode or otherwise degrade at a rapid rate, leading to chemical contamination of the plasma. Other disadvantages are the presence of large, stray fields of rf energy in the case of the rf generated plasma, and limited plasma temperature for both methods. The use of a highly focused, cw (continuous wave) laser to maintain a plasma, after ignition suffers from the disadvantage that the plasma tends to propagate away from the higher intensity regions of the focused beam, and stabilize at a location where the radiation intensity is the minimum required for plasma maintenance. This plasma migration to a relatively low intensity region results in a very much reduced plasma temperature. Additionally, the absorption of the laser radiation by the plasma is also reduced leading to an inefficient utilization of laser energy.